For the computer geeks........

[Shovelhead]

I was all excited like a child on Christmas when my package from tigerdirect.com came with the parts for my new computer.
After an hour or so of assembly everything powered up, all the bells and whistles were chirping....alas.........no display!!!!:help:
I checked all of the usaul stuff.........RAM, video and chip seatings.
I guess I don't understand the BIOS...of course there is little if no directions...just a 2' x 3' poster with pictures to follow along for the Mobo.
Theres a little fitting with 3 prongs for the BIOS config and a cap the fits over 2 of the prongs....I don't get it.
:help:

[JMDigital]

That 3 prong set of pins sound like its the CMOS CLEAR/RUN jumper set. Back in the day when I was building PC's new motherboards used to get shipped with the CMOS CLEAR/RUN jumper set in the CLEAR mode. We had to move that jumper to the other position so the board would boot up. It usually is close to the battery. They ship it in the CLEAR mode because of testing before it goes to retail stores. Give it a try. If there was NO jumper on those pins when you got the board RE-VERIFY that is is the CLEAR/RUN jumper set. You dont want to short out the board by putting a jumper where one does not belong.... Can you scan and post a pic of that sheet that came with the board.. or post the name and model of it.

Questions..

1. Did you have to put the processor on?
2. What hardware did you get? A complete system?
3. Did you use your old case?

If you cant identify the CMOS CLEAR jumper DO NOT start moveing jumpers arround. There are not that many on boards anymore however some may change processor settings , so be carefull.. Look in the book for the one I am talking about.

Good Luck.... from 1 computer geek to another... :Cool 2:

[njsigns]

I build a lot of computers myself. I have had things not work on machines from time to time as well, sometimes a real PITA to figure out.

With the particualr problem you are having I have found that I tightened the screws too hard into the motherboard on occassion, or I didn't use those little round gaskets on a post or two mounting the board into the case. You'd be surprised how many issues this can cause!

Another quick fix might be if you have onboard video and also have an aftermarket video card to disble the onboard video in the BIOS. I have also racked my brain for this exact same problem, only to discover (after walking away) that when I had both onboard video and an aftermarket video card that I was simply plugging the monitor into the wrong video output!

I'd start with the later and maybe work backwards. Good Luck!

Gene

[Shovelhead]

1. Did you have to put the processor on?

YES: I set the processor myself...socket 775....heat greased it
and set the CPU fan.....pretty standard.


2. What hardware did you get? A complete system?

Mobo: Intel D945PSN

I got a barebones system....case / CPU / Mobo / CPU fan / 1 gig RAM / 500 watt power supply....I added DVD / 160 Mb Maxtor HD / XFX GeForce 512Mb graphics card
They card was a challenge to get in....i pre-installed it on the Mobo and the Mobo was impossible to mount

[Shovelhead]

I can't figure out where to connect the case speaker wire and the DVD/HD
4-pronged female audio).................................
and the SATA cables that came with the HD and DVD (L-shaped female plug)
don't look like they fit onto the DVD and hard drive.
Thanks again guys.

[Dennis Raap]

The case speaker wire will plug in to the mother board usually in the lower right hand corner there will be a bunch of small pins all to gather. You will have to look either on the mother board or in documentation for the proper pins.

The 4-pronged audio will plug in to either the sound card or if the sound card is built in to the mother board there will be a plug on the mother board.

[Dennis Raap]

Is your hard drive a SATA or IDE?

[Shovelhead]

it came with SATA plugs.............but they don't fit the HD..........
I'm assuming that IDE is the ribbons????
I have it connected with ribbons.
I guess I better buy a sound card. It's a work machine so I had ne need for sound....thought I coulg just go to the motherboard....still learning.

[JMDigital]

ok.. If you did not get a book with that board you can get a PDF of it here.. ftp://download.intel.com/design/motherbd/sn/D1407301US.pdf

As for the SERIAL ATA connectors - you are saying you cant get them in your CD ROM or HARD DRIVE. As far as I know there are not alot of SERIAL ATA CD ROMS out there, Did you purchase a new CD Rom and hard drive? If not your old drives are most likely not SERIAL ATA. you will have to use the 1 paralell ATA hard drive interface for the older drives.

[Shovelhead]

:help:

[Shovelhead]

I have a RAM stick in DIMM 1 and DIMM 2....should they be on the same DIMM??? :Oops:

[Dennis Raap]

Some mother boards come with built in sound cards.

[jayhawksigns]

My suggestion is to take out everything but the processor, video card, and 1 stick of ram. Try booting it then, because you should at least get the bios load screen with all of that hooked up, if that doesn't work, try swapping out the ram sticks.

[Shovelhead]

this thing would have a bullet hole in it by now.
But it's coming along..........I've deciphered that it has a built in sound card
and all of my extraneous cables and power wires are for other drives etc.
I will try the one stick of RAM advice and post my results.
I really do appreciate all of the assistance.
:Coffee:

[Dennis Raap]

The Ram should be the same size and if there are 4 slots for Ram the Mother Board documentation should tell you which slots to use.

[jayhawksigns]

This will not effect the booting of the computer into bios, but I would highly recommend putting the CD and hard drive on different ide ribbons, as well as seperate power cables if there are enough.

One more question, was the motherboard mounted in the case when you received it??

[Shovelhead]

This will not effect the booting of the computer into bios, but I would highly recommend putting the CD and hard drive on different ide ribbons, as well as seperate power cables if there are enough.

One more question, was the motherboard mounted in the case when you received it??

put everything together myself..................
I'm not getting a BEEP at boot-up....I think that's half om my problem.

[Shovelhead]

"but I would highly recommend putting the CD and hard drive on different ide ribbons, as well as seperate power cables if there are enough."

What is the advantage to that????

[jayhawksigns]

Can you take a picture showing the motherboard in the case, maybe you missed a connection that someone can see.

Any question I ask is because I don't know how much you know about computers, but did you get all of the standoffs properly placed for mounting the motherboard??

I like putting hard drives seperate of other devices, especially fans, so that they are not directly effected by the other devices. It was something I was thought long ago, and I don't know if it really makes a difference, but it doesn't hurt. The idea is that with fans for instance, the are not built to the same standards has hard drives and may cause fluctuations in the power supplied through that cable. If a fluctuation would occur for some reason, it could be enough to cause the hard drive to write a file improperly, and it would probably end up being the file you just first hours finishing.

[Shovelhead]

..:Coffee:

[Shovelhead]

:Coffee:

[Dennis Raap]

Looks like you don't have your speaker wire hooked up yet so you would not get a beep.

[jayhawksigns]

My list of things.

It looks like you have both power leads hooked up to the MB - good
The graphics card looks like it may not be seated properly - try removing it and reseating it.
Does that MB not have a floppy connection??
Your case speaker is not hooked up from what I can tell, it should go on the connector just above the other case connection, and have to leads coming from the MB.
Go through and recheck your case connection, make sure you have the power led and power switch in the right places.

That graphics card not aligning with the screw holes it what bothers me the most though.

[Shovelhead]

I was having trouble locating the connection on the Mobo.
The graphics card is seated properly on the mobo pin connection.
I had to bend back were you're looking in order to seat it properly....
It was a very snug fit.
I went online and some people were having trouble with this barebones
as far as stuff fitting properly but again...it is snapped in there.

[Fred Weiss]

Try the next slot down for the video card. I just built a new box and the top slot wouldn't line up easily but the others did.

[Shovelhead]

:Coffee:

[Shovelhead]

I should have mentioned....it's a PCI Express.....only one connection.

[jayhawksigns]

I reviewed the picture I snagged off of tigerdirect's website to see the mb bare and you're right, I didn't count the number of pins that were in the top connector so you have to have the hdd and cd on the same ribbon. That just means you can't add another cd or hdd with it being a sata connection.

I am running out of ideas. Have you tried calling tiger for tech support?? Years ago when I was in high school, I bought a kit from them and I ended up getting a mb that was defective, they sent me another one and I sent back the bad one.

[Git-R-Done]

I was having the same problem. Just my .02 but I just put a new system together and ran into some problems as well. After further digging. I found that my brand new 2 sticks of ram (1 gig each) were bad. Also on the new board they had to be put in slots 1 and 3, not 1 and 2. There is a name for this but I can not recall at this time. After figuring all of this out and getting the ram replaced I had no problems. Hope this helps. MORE POWER OH! OH! OH!

[Shovelhead]

that I have and AGP video card....the specs and box say PCI Express....
so that explains the tight fit.....this is getting complicated.

[jayhawksigns]

Ouch, that probably explains a lot, like I said I thought something looked wrong with the graphics card.

Have you called tigerdirect to see if you can RMA it??

[Baz]

To bad that board doesnt have onboard video. You could at least be running with it until you changed your card to PCI xpress. As far as sound goes it has onboard audio so no need for a sound card (unless you want to play games on it :biggrin: )

[Cadmn]

I'm willing to bet you have memory location problems many boards today have to have two sticks of memory to boot & they have to be located correctly to work Good luck I usually build outside the case first then its easier to trouble shoot start with minimum parts video & memory once its booting then move on up in Parts. cd/dvd last MY .02 10years on bench

[Shovelhead]

although it's ultimately my fault this particular card was on the PCI Express page............I did a little altering to get the card to fit....they wouldn't take it back....a $94.00 lesson.....oh well.........half price to whomever wants it is my co-worker can't use it.......

XFX GeForce AGPx8 512 Mb DDR RAM II......regularly $94.00
...........................................scratch and dent $50.00

[Fred Weiss]

Not.

Both cards use a standard PCI slot on your motherboard. Try moving it down one slot and you will see a difference in the fit.

[jayhawksigns]

Shovel -

What do you mean by scratch and dent exactly, pm me if you want I might be interested.

And Fred, did you sleep last night??

[Fred Weiss]

And Fred, did you sleep last night??

Like a log. The sweet and gentle rest of a contented man.

[Shovelhead]

:Coffee:

[njsigns]

I built a computer from tigerdirect a week ago myself, and had problems booting into Windows, and it turned out I needed to put the cd rom and the hard drive on seperate IDE cables and change the boot order in the BIOS. Once I did this things went fine. I think it might have to do with ATA 133 vs ATA 100.

I would start by taking them both off the same IDE cable, as this resolved a lot of problems for me. Also when you boot into Windows be prepared to see your hard drive be only about half of the size if it's 200 gigs or more. Let me know when you get there, and I can help you get the rest of the drive back.

Gene

[Shovelhead]

is it as simple as plugging the DVD into the available floppy slot on it's own ribbon because that's the only way that I can have a separate connection.
I don't recognise any of the other connections on the drives

Maxtor 160GB EIDE HD 7200/8Mb/ATA-133

[Shovelhead]

Nec Nd-3550a 16x

[jayhawksigns]

Shovelhead-

You unfortunately can not plug you dvd and hdd into seperate ports on that particular mb, trying to use the floppy port is like putting a AGP card in a PCI Express slot, enough said.

What you need to check is on the back of both drive will be a little plasitc jumper. That selects whether the drive is the master or slave for that particular ribbon. You will need to maske sure that the hdd is set to master, and the dvd is set to slave. There should be a little diagram on either drive showing where the jumper needs to be for each setting.

[Shovelhead]

there's no switch like that on either device.
Just power, the ribbon input and 3 smaller male connections

[jayhawksigns]

http://images10.newegg.com/NeweggImage/productimage/27-106-013-03.JPG

This should roughly be what the back of the dvd drive looks like.

From right to left

The power hookup
IDE ribbon connector
The next pins (with the gren jumper) are what sets whether the drive is a slave or master
The next two slots if I remember are the digital and analog audio out jacks.
The last six pins you don't use.


The hdd won't have the audio connections of course.

[adsorp-tech]

That really stinks. Sometimes it's nice to have built in graphics just for the whole troubleshooting end of things. One option is to get a super cheap pci graphics card if you're in a hurry to get things up and running and install windows. I had an old one that held me over until my PCI-E card came in. Some place like Wal-Mart might have one for less than $20.

I also agree with some of the others. Use one stick of ram in at first. Try each of the four slots and either stick if problems persist.

Your mobo should have some fine text stamped around the case/power header. You'll find all your case led's listed along with power, reset, and speaker. You can get by with only the power one connected (sometimes listed as Power SW (-switch) on the mobo or in the book.

Leave your cd-rom out of the mix for now. Work with the bare minimum. If your HD lacks the L-shaped SATA connector(s) it's not SATA. I say connectors because most newer SATA drives will have a second smaller one for SATA power if your power supply supports it. If not, the standard four pin will be fine.

Seperating your drives on different IDE channels has several benifits. One being that your HD can get all the bandwith it wants on it's own without sharing it with any other drive. Although if you do have two CD/DVD drives, it is a good idea to seperate them so they each have their own channel. Especially if you plan to burn disks "on the fly".

Either way, I'm probably just rambling on because you'll probably be fine once you swap the video card... Oh, and that audio connector from the CD-rom is practically useless. I haven't used one on any of the last 10 pc's I built. Your internal audio software doesn't require it.

[Shovelhead]

only mine is black, looks like it has prongs sticking out of it...and there is no text
with the slave/master option....doesn't look like it can slide.....Damn, this blows!

[njsigns]

you need to pull that "jumper" out with tweezers if you can't get your fingers around it. then you can slide it over the correct pins (usually slave). It doesn't slide left to right, just straight out then straight on.

Gene

[Fred Weiss]

It doesn't slide. It lifts straight off and is a jumper to connect the appropriate two pins for master or slave.

If you only have one IDE channel then make the DVD the slave and the hard drive the master. If you have two IDE channels then put the hard drive on the master and the DVD on the slave channels using two different ribbon cables but keep the dvd jumper setting as master.

[Techman]

RAM must match the processor.
So many times ive observed that same problem only to find the RAM did not match the processor or the motherboard..

[Shovelhead]

This wouldn't be such a pain in the *** if they'd supply manuals
and whatnot....I'm sure I can get them off of the net....but Jeez.....

[jayhawksigns]

Shovel -

I hope that this doesn't discourage you from building your own computer again. Anyone who has worked with computer long enough runs into problems like you have to some extent.

I had a problem a while back where our rip station would no longer boot up windows xp, but swear to god, I hooked up an old drive with windows 98 and it worked. Darndest thing I have ever come across, the cpu now has this absolute hate for win 2000 or xp, but will load the old 98 fine.

Next time, you'll order from newegg.com, get the parts in three days or less, and have the computer assembled in less than an hour, laughing about how much a pain in the rear the last computer was.

[JMDigital]

is it as simple as plugging the DVD into the available floppy slot on it's own ribbon because that's the only way that I can have a separate connection.
I don't recognise any of the other connections on the drives

Maxtor 160GB EIDE HD 7200/8Mb/ATA-133

You can not plug the DVD into the floppy connection. Its diffrent. Ok. Make shure the DVD is set to SLAVE and the hard drive is set to MASTER. If they are. then UNPLUG the CDROM and turn it on with just the HDD in. Have you been able to get any video yet?

And the RAM situation .. if you have 2 sticks run them so they are in slot 0 of each pair. that gives you the best setup. To check the ram use them 1 at a time and see if the system starts up.

if there is still no video.. remove EVERYTHING except 1 stick of ram and the video card. plug in a PS2 keyboard (not usb) and watch the 3 lights on the top right of the kb. when you turn the system on the 3 lights should light up then go out. if they do not flash at all there is a problem with either the board or chip..



Sounds like you have a little nightmare over there... hope you wake up from it soon! keep updating us here

[Shovelhead]

for a couple dozen posts..........I have the wrong video card.........
I'm not blaming tigerdirect but I narrowed my purchase down to PCI Express on their site and they had this card listed on the page with the PCI Exes...it's an AGP......I didn't read the fine print......anywho.........I look forward to resolving this...thankfully it's a side project and my work isn't effected.

[Shovelhead]

be patient everyone.......:Coffee:

[JMDigital]

be patient everyone.......:Coffee:

Run them like the pic on the left. Thats DUAL CHANNEL . better..

I Hope nothing got damaged with the video card error.. jaming that card into that slot cant be healthy... ???

[jayhawksigns]

Dual channel like JMD above said is definitely the way to go.

And Shovel, I just have to do this, and I hope you chuckle a little bit. I found this when I was checking out the tigerdirect site.




http://images.tigerdirect.com/itemdetails/videocards/BUB-icon.jpg
Before you buy - make sure your motherboard is compatible with this video card. For example, PCI Express video cards won’t work with motherboards designed only for AGP or PCI video cards, and vice versa.

[Cadmn]

shovel old boss was big stickler for building outside case first then add probs as you go you only need cpu mem & power to chk then go from there directions never really come with any parts mb's used to have small ones just to explain all the jumpers for the certain cpu you had gotten AMD Intel K5 K6 5x86 etc. etc.

[Shovelhead]

$94.99 for the card is chump change.....I got some education from this......
I'm headed out for lunch today to CompUSA for a new card..........I don't want to wait for the UPS guy. I'm going to take eveyone's advice to get this Mutha going. I'm confident with the help that I got here that I'll be up an running Saturday. Thanks again guys!
:Coffee: